Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pressing apparatus configured to generate a force in a direction in which two connected units are separated from each other, and a sheet conveying apparatus including the pressing apparatus and an image forming system including the sheet conveying apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, a sheet conveying apparatus such as a sheet feeding apparatus configured to feed sheets to an image forming apparatus has been used in an image forming system such as a copying machine or a printer.
The sheet feeding apparatus is juxtaposed to the image forming apparatus and is configured to feed sheets into the image forming apparatus through a feeding outlet of the sheet feeding apparatus connected to a feeding inlet formed in a side portion of the image forming apparatus. Further, as for the sheet feeding apparatus as described above, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2004-256186, there is described a technique of providing a spring between the sheet feeding apparatus and the image forming apparatus to exert a force in a direction in which the sheet feeding apparatus is pushed out of the image forming apparatus, to thereby reduce force required for a user to pull the sheet feeding apparatus out of the image forming apparatus.
In order to shorten a distance over which the user is to operate, a stroke of the spring acting on the sheet feeding apparatus is suitably increased. However, there is a problem in that the increased stroke inevitably increases a length of a member such as the spring in a separating direction, thus increasing a space in the separating direction.